Bond’s name in stone should remind us of his vote on torture

[struggle4progress]

By TONY MESSENGER
Published Sunday, October 9, 2005

On a day when the University of Missouri’s Board of Curators was chiseling Sen. Kit Bond’s name on a building that stands for life, the senior senator from the Show-Me State was voting for death.

It’s the kind of stark contrast that caused curators some time ago to make the wise decision to not name buildings after men who have not yet died. Bond is very much with the living, though his vote on an anti-torture bill has to make one wonder what life truly means to one of nine U.S. Senate Republicans who wouldn’t stand behind a man who knows more about torture than all of the country’s other senators put together. <snip>

Decades ago, in the confines of a Vietnam prison, McCain suffered his own torture. As a prisoner of war, McCain saw and felt firsthand the pain torture inflicts. He survived. <snip>

Bond trades a little torture for some bricks and mortar with his name chiseled in perpetuity. That’s how the game is played in the Beltway, and nobody back home will blink as long as the cash keeps flowing our way.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2005/Oct/20051009Feat001.asp